The collapse of complex societies
A survey of complex (post-hunter-gatherer, hierarchical) societies and their collapse, and the various theories proposed to account for collapse. The author develops his own theory based on the increasing cost of managing complexity that acheives decreasing marginal benefits.
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34recommend
101mentions
61people
2010–2026years
52% recommend48% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I’m more optimistic about humanity but I doubt the west will work out in its current trajectory.
If you haven’t read The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter it’s worth a read. It’s not a conspiratorial or even outright pessimistic theory.
- Likewise, thank you for the recommendation. I obviously haven't read Goliath's Curse yet, but it seems like Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies (1988) might also be interesting for the same readers.
- For anyone curious about academic studies of historical societal collapses, check out Joseph Tainter [1]
> As described in Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. [...] Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning the consumption of resources, or other forms of wealth).
> When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of energy, or difficulty in gaining access to it, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Tainter, who first identifies seventeen examples of rapid collapse of societies, applies his model to three case studies: The Western Roman Empire, the Maya civilization, and the Chaco culture.
> For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (as metals, grain, slaves, other materials of value). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. [...]
> It is often assumed that the collapse of the western Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off. Tainter notes that in the west, local populations in many cases greeted the barbarians as liberators.
- Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies should be required reading. I don’t care your major. It should be required reading.
- > I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.
I have good news and bad news. The world doesn't stand still. There are some iterations that destroy the structure of society, after which a new structure must be built. The oligarchies of today will meet their end at some point. And, no amount of preemptive effort can prevent that. That's as the good news go, in as much as they are good news.
These are not my ideas exclusively. If you want to hear them from people that has dedicated a fair amount of time at exploring this subject and gathering data, I recommend these books:
- Capital in the Twenty-First Century, for an overview of historical change. You will find that the author agrees with you in many accounts.
- The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Josph A. Tainter.
- Principles for dealing with the changing world order.
The bad news is that the most likely iteration coming around the corner is human's lost of control of our societies in favor of machine intelligence. It's not going to be as "peaceful" as the rise of the post WWII world order, but I hope that we survive.
- The evidence we have is exactly the one you said: moderns humans living in conditions of scarcity. Sure, they don't resort to as dire extremes as the one I described. Mostly[^1]. I was simply extrapolating. But the rule of law, rules of conduct and so on are not the same as for us Westerners living the good life, nor is the degree to which they obey those laws. You just need to visit a third-world country, or look at their numbers (e.g., corruption index).
I was born to those facts in my particular native hell-hole[^2], but later in life I did some book-worming to inform myself better. I can highly recommend "The Collapse of Complex Societies: New Studies in Archaeology, Book 8" (it's expensive in Amazon, but one credit in Audible). From that work:
> The citizens of modern complex societies usually do not realize that we are an anomaly of history. Throughout the several million years that recognizable humans are known to have lived, the common political unit was the small, autonomous community, acting independently, and largely self-sufficient. Robert Carneiro has estimated that 99.8 percent of human history has been dominated by these autonomous local communities (1978; 219). It has only been within the last 6000 years that something unusual has emerged: the hierarchical, organized, interdependent states that are the major reference for our contemporary political experience.
[^1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korowai_people
[^2] When starvation was too dire, my people would steal the neighbor's cat and eat it. It was a widespread practice.
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